Mixed-up emotions 'bad for the euro'
By Bruno Waterfield
Last Updated: 2:00am GMT 30/01/2007
European Union officials yesterday blamed "mixed up" people for letting emotions get in the way of a proper appreciation of the euro.
The remark came in response to a new FT-Harris poll which shows that most of the eurozone's citizens would like to have their old, comfortable national currencies back.
Feelings are particularly strong in Germany, the present holder of the EU's rotating presidency and Europe's largest economy.
Two thirds of Germans now prefer the Deutschmark to the euro and more than half believe that the European single currency has damaged their country's economy.
But the European Commission insists that ordinary people are simply failing to grasp the benefits of the single currency.
"The danger we see with these surveys is that they contribute to enforcing what in the end are impressions, gut feelings, rather than facts," said a commission spokesman.
Brussels is particularly exercised by survey results showing that more than two thirds of French, Italian and Spanish people believe that the euro has had a negative economic impact.
"We should always treat surveys with extreme caution because of the tendency of people to mix things up," the spokesman added.
Derek Scott, Tony Blair's economic adviser between 1997 and 2003, said he was unimpressed, if unsurprised, by the EU reaction.
"We saw this with the EU constitution too," he said. "The knee-jerk response of bureaucrats is blame people for not understanding."
Mr Scott argued that evidence against the euro is mounting as the one-size-fits-all currency hampers economic and fiscal policy in countries such as Germany.
"People are quite right," he said. "We are just beginning to see a crisis that will, in two or three years, become absolutely clear."
EU officials are growing increasingly concerned that buoyant European economic growth is failing to translate into popular support.
French and Dutch referendum rejections of the EU constitution in 2005 have reinforced fears in Brussels that Europe's institutions, including the single currency, are a lightning rod for popular discontent.
"We have warned countless times against using the euro as a scapegoat," said the commission spokesman.
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